1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to dispensing of fluids and, in particular, to methods and systems for dispensing microfluidic or sub-microfluidic volumes of droplets of chemical, biological or other reagents or liquids.
2. Description of the Related Art
Both genomics and proteomics involve the handling, transfer and assaying of microfluidic and sub-microfluidic quantities of expensive reagents and other liquids. Microfluidic liquid handling is associated with areas such as DNA microarraying, protein crystallization, high-throughput screening and combinatorial chemistry, among others. It has application in key markets such as life science research, biodiagnostics, pharmaceutical, agrochemical and materials science, among others.
It can be a difficult task to precisely, accurately and efficiently handle, transfer and deliver accurate microfluidic and sub-microfluidic quantities of liquids. These quantities typically are in the range from the order of a nanoliter (nL) to tens of microliters (μL) though they may be smaller, such as in the picoliter range, or larger.
The complexity of the task is further increased when dealing with a wide variety of reagents, complex target geometries or configurations and when dispense volumes are of the order of a hundred nanoliters or less. Conventional technologies are generally unable to address these issues adequately.